A woman has been left needing open-heart surgery - after a spooked horse kicked her in the leg. <br /><br />Paris Hedger, 20, went horse riding while on holiday in Port Vila, Vanuatu, with her friends. <br /><br />But she says the horse went “crazy” and kicked her in her right leg as she was walking behind it. <br /><br />She was left with a swollen leg and was given an ice pack and a wheelchair - thinking she'd suffered nothing more than bruising.<br /><br />But just one month later, she was left in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, US, after blood clots in her leg travelled to her lungs. <br /><br />Now she needs open-heart surgery to remove the blood clots from the pulmonary arteries, and has been told she’ll be put into a medically induced coma this week to give her lungs a chance to "reset." <br /><br />Paris, a former travel blogger, from Adelaide, Australia, said: “I wouldn’t recommend going horse riding in unfamiliar environments - the only option left for me is major surgery and a coma. <br /><br />“If the surgery goes well, it’s going to be a long road to recovery.<br /><br />“But if it goes wrong - I could be looking at a three-month coma, and an emergency double-lung transplant.”<br /><br />The accident happened while Paris was in Port Vila, Vanuatu, on November 25, 2023. <br /><br />She was on a horse riding excursion with her friends - but had doubts about her horse’s temperament. <br /><br />“I felt quite unsafe,” she said. <br /><br />“The horses were all riding really close to each other.<br /><br />“Mine went crazy when I tried to get on it, and just kicked back at me.”<br /><br />Paris was told to sit down by helpers and back at her accommodation, she was given ice and a wheelchair. <br /><br />But, thinking she’d badly bruised her leg, she didn’t get checked out by a doctor. <br /><br />On November 28, she flew home to Adelaide - and noticed her leg looked really swollen. <br /><br />She said: “I went to the hospital to get checked out.<br /><br />“They wanted to rule out a break, so I had my leg x-rayed. <br /><br />“Once doctors found out it wasn’t broken, I was sent home.”<br /><br />On December 17, Paris set off to New York for another holiday with her friends. <br /><br />She noticed on the plane that she was suffering from a bad cough and felt breathless after walking several steps.<br /><br />By the time she transferred in LA, she struggled to breathe at all. <br /><br />“I visited the GP in Los Angeles,” she said. <br /><br />“He sent me straight to the emergency room in Cedars-Sinai Hospital.<br /><br />“There, they found I had blood clots all over my lungs - which must’ve travelled from my leg.”<br /><br />Doctors admitted Paris to the intensive care unit (ICU) - where she stayed for three days. <br /><br />She stayed in the hospital for 10 days in total - until she stabilised, and was allowed to be prescribed blood thinners. <br /><br />“My doctors asked me if I’d had any trauma in my leg,” she said. <br /><br />“They couldn’t believe no-one picked the blood clots up beforehand.<br /><br />“Long flights, obviously, can cause them to grow even more.<br /><br />“I was given lots of different medications to help with my heart.<br /><br />“I couldn’t do any exercise at all.”
